


Time Enough, but None to Spare

by Severuslovesme



Category: Oxford Time Travel Universe - Connie Willis
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-23
Updated: 2011-12-23
Packaged: 2017-10-27 21:33:30
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,157
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/300263
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Severuslovesme/pseuds/Severuslovesme
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>Lose not yourself in a far off time, seize the moment that is thine.</i> Friedrich Schiller.</p><p>Sir Godfrey, after Viola's exit.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Time Enough, but None to Spare

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Philomytha](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Philomytha/gifts).



> Thanks to my beta! Happy Yuletide, Philomytha, and thanks for requesting something I was dying to write!

The weeks after Viola’s departure proceed much the way they were originally planned: staging and performing the pantomime, with only a few minor catastrophes to be managed. The troupe is cheerful, perfectly willing to replace Eileen as the principle boy, and full of good wishes for Polly and her young man. Opening night (he refuses to acknowledge that a pantomime has only an opening afternoon) goes off flawlessly, despite the Hodbin's very best destructive efforts.

After the performance he accepts the fulsome congratulations of the troupe, and threatens to kick Alf when he scarpers off with the loaned swords and a shouted excuse thrown over his shoulder.

Only he and Eileen recognize the gravity of their loss; Miss Laburnam has more than once alluded to Polly’s eventual return to the troupe, after her honeymoon, and the Reverend spoke of her resumption of her ENSA work as a given. Eileen looked stricken, the first time this topic came up, and seemed to sink into herself. He watched her regain her composure, but there is something subdued in her manner the whole rest of the evening.

He comes across her huddled in a back hallway of the theatre, her slim figure drawn up into a pose of wretched dejection.

After several false starts, and more than one awkward silence, Eileen confesses the events of the past year to him, time travel and all. He gets the sense that divulging this is seriously taboo, given the set of rules she used to hold herself responsible for. But he listens solemnly as she describes the panic, and determined desperation that she, Polly and Mike lived with those months. As he listens she seems to find new confidence of spirit. He can see her happiness for Polly’s retrieval (a new word, he fits it into his mental lexicon surrounding Viola) shining in her face, as well as her own contentment with her lot. A burden shared is a burden eased, and perhaps his own knowledge now of her situation is enough to lighten the load.

His own is not so easily shared. It is hard, learning not to expect to see Viola's bright eyes rise to his face as he walks into rehearsal, or see the shining gleam of her hair against a darker backdrop of sets and theatre seats. He spends an unfortunate few weeks seeing her in the curve of a cheek on the street, or in the blonde striding briskly down Oxford Street. Inevitably his heart leaps each time, and then sinks practically to the ground.

But pain fades, as pain must, and he throws himself into the troupe's next endeavor with a will. His gloom, first worsened by the stricken look Eileen's face takes on whenever anyone mentions Polly, is soon lightened by her companionship.

At Miss Laburnam’s suggestion he accompanies Eileen to St. Paul’s in May to visit Mike Davis’s grave. Alf and Binnie accompany them, and only laugh when he threatens them with physical violence. He watches them as they treat Eileen with cheerful, irreverent devotion, and marvels at how good these three are for one another. He prefers these thoughts to thoughts of Viola - Polly, as he must try to think of her. She has returned to her own place, with a young - young! - man who loves her. As easily as Viola assimilated into St. Georges, into the troupe, she has always held herself apart, has never really fitted in. It was that quality which struck him, the first evening she alighted from the staircase and into his life. She held herself as though she were an actress on the stage, rather than a living, breathing person. Eileen, if she ever resembled Viola in that respect, certainly does not now. She cheerfully allows herself to be suborned by the Rector and Mrs. Wyvern into assisting with the war orphans effort, corresponds with her friend the vicar, who is currently in Alhambra, and he has seen first hand her devotion to Alf and Binnie.

He has always liked Eileen, ever since Viola introduced her to the troupe the previous fall. Her presence had such a positive effect on Viola, even though he recognized the signs of desperation in her face, especially around the New Year. But Eileen’s cheerful presence, and Mike Davis’s as well, was terribly beneficial to his Viola. He hadn’t lied when he told her that her face expressed her every emotion, and he had seen comfort and relief there when she was with Mike and Eileen.

He couldn’t remember when he had realized that they must be from the future as well, though Viola wasn’t nearly as sneaky as she seemed to think she was. Nor did she whisper particularly quietly. He supposed it had been during the Christmas Carol performance, when she was distracted nearly to, well, distraction, with hoping for Mike’s return. At first he thought her anxiety a natural desire for the company of friends at Christmas, but finally he saw the concern for what it was - anticipation of good, desperately sought news.

On particularly bad nights he muses on how this dramatic turn his life has taken might never have happened. He had been passing through Knightsbridge on the second night of the Blitz, and been surprised by the earlier arrival of those bedeviled planes. An ARP warden directed him to the nearest shelter, despite his protest that his own home and comfortable cellar were only five blocks away. He had been unceremoniously dumped into the basement of St. Georges, and never regretted that chance of fate, and perhaps chance of the Luftwaffe. Except perhaps for the morning after the church was hit, when he believed that Viola - beautiful, innocent Viola - was at the bottom of the rubble. There were not very many things he did not regret at that moment.

He thinks of Viola’s face, as she watched him so earnestly from her perch on his hospital bed, and her beatific expression when he confirmed that she had in fact saved his life. He thinks it’s possible he could contribute to the war effort in some measurable way, to make his a life worth saving. He owes it to her to try. He signs up for a tour overseas, to motivate the troops, and thinks that perhaps he is somehow necessary for their eventual success. At least, that feels like a more useful activity than entertaining bored servicemen on leave in London - and those numbers have been dwindling anyway, as the war escalates outside of Britain. And as he knows they do win, it will be a happy tour, hopefully free from the despair that had plagued him at various points since the Blitz began.

The troupe takes the news of his imminent departure with some concern, but he reassures them that they are capable of anything, and will hardly notice his absence. He smiles at Eileen, who throws her arms around him. It is, he thinks, enough.


End file.
